


Syncopation

by Themadwomanwhoisunfortunatelylackingabox



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Dubious Consent, Dubious Consent Due To Identity Issues, Guilt, M/M, Possessive Behavior, Power Imbalance, Unhealthy Relationships, mentions of Barry Allen/Eobard Thawne
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-10
Updated: 2016-09-10
Packaged: 2018-08-13 03:56:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 930
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7961536
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Themadwomanwhoisunfortunatelylackingabox/pseuds/Themadwomanwhoisunfortunatelylackingabox
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Syncopation: to displace the beats or accents in (music or a rhythm) so that strong beats become weak and vice versa.<i></i></i>
</p><p> </p><p> Their love was a heartbreak sort of thing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Syncopation

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into 中文 available: [Syncopation 切分音](https://archiveofourown.org/works/9132649) by [jls20011425](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jls20011425/pseuds/jls20011425)



It was never going to last. They knew that from the beginning. Or at least—they should have known that from the beginning.

(Eobard knew that from the beginning. Hartley—Hartley was a phoenix, with breakable, baby-bird wings; reborn from the ashes but fragile to the touch. And his heart, as broken as it was, had not turned to ice.)

It was ill fated and they both knew it, but they did it anyway. (They had to both have known that. Hartley had to know that a relationship with his boss would never end well.) They did it anyway. 

It started with a kiss. Hardly even a kiss. A ghost of a kiss; chaste and questioning, and dare Eobard say it— _innocent_. 

Hartley kissed like he had never been kissed before.

That, more than anything else, was the reason why Eobard chose to make Hartley belong to him. He always did like the thought of ruining something that had never been touched. Always did like the thought of having someone who would belong to him, completely.

So he tangled his fingers in Hartley’s hair and kissed him like he ought to be kissed; hard and hot and until he was trembling. When they broke apart, Hartley stared at him with one part rapture, one part lust, and one small, small part, badly-disguised fear. 

Eobard smiled at that, a slow, cheshire thing. Hartley would belong to him, eventually. He already did. It was Hartley’s kiss that started it all. If he didn’t want it, he shouldn’t have kissed him. But they were more similar than Hartley would think, and Eobard knew a thing or two about self-destructive tendencies.

(Of course, all that was a pretty lie; it didn’t start with a kiss. It started with a touch. With requests. With Eobard asking for Hartley to work late, and when he just happened to work late with him. It started with the occasional touch on Hartley’s wrist, barely there but hard enough to feel the jump of his pulse; beats moving from common time to cut.

But it was easier to say it began with a kiss. It was easier to say that Hartley was responsible. That his lapse in judgement was because of a siren’s-call kiss, that Hartley knew what he was getting into, or should have known all along.

The truth, of course, was less palatable: he seduced him. He saw Hartley’s schoolboy crush, and he encouraged it. He gave Hartley all the praise he never had; waxed poetic about his science and made him his right hand man. He whispered Latin into his ear, and felt him shiver when he did so. He gave Hartley everything he ever wanted: acceptance, praise, affection.

He took advantage. The kiss was just sealing the deal.)

Their affair—and that was what it was, an affair; torrid and tinged with desperation and the inability to see the facts—was a heated fantasy, but nothing more. (The facts: One. Eobard didn’t want this boy. Not really. He wanted his keens, his moans, his seductive innocence that he tried to hide behind false bravado, but they might as well have been coming from from any other pretty faced boy. Two. Eobard had promised whatever was left of his heart to the very man who twisted it beyond repair. There was no one like Barry Allen. There never would be. Three. Hartley, as dark as he could be, as much potential he had for villainy, deserved better. He deserved—he deserved what Eobard never got to have.)

They played at being lovers, at having an office romance. He called Hartley into his office for his reports and it ended up in blow jobs. He silenced Hartley’s complaints about propriety with a kiss and a steady hand reaching for the button of his slacks. 

It was good, in a way. In a way it was better than anything he had ever had before; all sunshine and syrupy sweet. In a way, it worse than everything else.(With the Flash and him, it had been fast and painful in all the right ways. It had burned like acid, it had hurt, but it had been a whirlwind of aggressive emotions and it felt _glorious_. It had been right, in a way that nothing else would ever feel again. They ruined each other for everyone else.

Hartley was nothing like _him_.)

They were too alike for anything to ever come of this. The Flash and him, they’d been reverses; both alike and different at the same time. Hartley…Hartley was young and brash and far too much like a younger Eobard Thawne, the Eobard Thawne who was blond and naive and in love with a dream.

But Hartley was good for a day, or a week, or a year. The interim, when the wanting became too much and the frustration rose too high, Hartley was there. Ready for the taking. And when he had Hartley spread out against a wall, or on his bed, or under his desk, so pliant and submissive, he thought of a different boy and kissed Hartley to stop his pleas of _Harrison, god, don’t stop._

It was good, what they had. 

But it had to end. And they both should have known that.

Hartley was too smart to just stay oblivious. Even when he was distracted. 

“Just what do you think you’re doing in my particle accelerator?” 

“Your particle accelerator? I thought it was ours.”

Oh, Hartley. 

He was nowhere near worth jeopardizing his whole plan for. Nowhere near worth jeopardizing the Flash for. 

**Author's Note:**

> so....this mostly came about bc i needed to cry about Hartley Rathaway, bc when don't i need to cry about Hartley lets be real


End file.
